


Dangerously Close & Dangerously Improper

by ArkStationsLibrary



Category: Enola Holmes (2020)
Genre: F/M, I've been calling him flower boy, detective lestrade - Freeform, enola holmes - Freeform, lord tewkesbury - Freeform, no one seems to know how to spell his name including me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26764906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArkStationsLibrary/pseuds/ArkStationsLibrary
Summary: When Enola ends up in another life or death situation, Tewkesbury realizes he can't live a life without her. Propriety be damned.
Relationships: Enola Holmes/Viscount "Tewky" Tewksbury
Comments: 31
Kudos: 660





	Dangerously Close & Dangerously Improper

Through the peephole of a coffin, Enola Holmes can see mourners passing by. It isn’t her funeral. In fact, she really shouldn’t be there at all. Much less, in a coffin. She’s not even dead. Except, she’s been hired by the Viscountess of Rosetshire to catch her fiancé who she believes has already tried to kill her at least three times. Once, on a walking trip with highway men. Another, on a hunting trip. And third, by poison. With the help of a very powerful sleeping drought Lord Tewkesbury had made for her, Enola had managed to fake the girl’s death. 

The Viscountess is a friend of Lord Tewkesbury. 

She’s a small girl, with a heart shaped face, blond hair, and blue eyes. When Enola had first laid eyes on her, she couldn’t help thinking that she looked like a perfect, porcelain doll. The kind she remembered seeing in shops as a child and thinking how horrifying they looked. It was like someone had taken girls souls, and stuffed them inside the wretched things, never to get out. They stared back at you with their lifeless eyes and you could practically hear their silent screaming at the injustice of it all. 

Dowager Tewkesbury coos over her and makes pointed comments about Lord Tewkesbury history with her every time Enola is near. They’ve no promises between them, Enola and the Lord. But they’ve been friends since she saved his life at sixteen years-old. The Dowager knows that, and hates that Enola knows a secret that could be her downfall if she cared to let it out to the world. 

But Tewkesbury had chosen not to press charges against her, deciding it was safer to keep her where he could watch her. Enola couldn’t say she blamed him after she did try to kill him and succeeded in killing his father. 

Enola makes Tewkesbury no promises though. She ignores the longing looks. The silent moments filled with aching. The grazing of knees on long train rides when they’re chasing down a ruffian and he insists to act as her chaperone even though he knows he’s about as deadly as a ladybug and she could kill someone with the a piece of whalebone from her corset. 

As Enola waits for the Viscountesses fiancé to appear, she’s aware that in saving her she is headed towards her own ruining. Viscountess Rosaline of Rosetshire is the perfect wife for Tewkesbury. Sweet, lovely, and part of his world. She’d make him happy. The Viscountess is not the kind of girl who ends up in coffins, with a pistol in her hand pointed upwards just in case. She’s the kind of girl who paints tea cups, who has a small dog, and knows the right fork to use at dinner. 

Enola knows that comparing oneself to other women is a loathsome occupation. Women needed to support each other, not to compete against one another. She had vowed to be the Viscountesses friend. And yet…. 

Yet, knowing that Tewkesbury was somewhere with Rosaline in the church like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn watching her funeral made Enola’s stomach turn. Then----she saw him. The Baron de something or rather. 

Baron de Pompusington as Enola had taken to call him. It was his mustache, and the awful smell of cigars and cologne. He whispered to the coffin, “Are you well and truly dead my love? Don’t worry, I’ll take excellent care of your fortune for you.” 

At the word fortune, Enola pushed the coffin door up then pointed the pistol at Baron de Pompusington’s head. “Detective Lestrade,” she said, “if you’ll do the honors, sir, and arrest this man for confessing to the attempted murder of the Viscountess of Rosetshire.” 

Baron de Pompusington looks horrified as Lestrade makes his way towards him with handcuffs. “You can’t do this!” he shouts. “Do you know who I am?! I’m the Baron de---” 

“I don’t give a bloody rats arse who you are,” Lestrade says, dragging the Baron away. 

There is a gasp that ripples through the crowd of mourners. Reveling in the attention, Enola takes a bow. She then hears the sound of shoes running against the churches stones and looks up to see Tewkesbury standing in front of her. Breathless. 

“Enola,” he breathes, as he helps her out of the coffin. He steadies her, her hands on her hips. Dangerously close, dangerously improper. His forehead is pressed to hers, and she realizes that he is trembling. If the Viscountess was ever a thought in his mind, Enola is fairly certain it’s gone now. Miles away. 

“Are you safe?” he asks, seemingly checking her over with his gaze in a way that makes her cheeks redder than any rogue could ever make them. 

“Useless boy,” she chuckles under her breath endearingly, “I’m the one with the pistol.” 

It isn’t the first time they’ve been on a case together. It isn’t even the first or worse traumatic life or death scenario they’ve been in. But being there in the church, with Enola having been trapped in coffin, makes everything come to a stop. There is only them, their breathing, and the cooing of pigeons in the church’s rafters high above.  
Enola has never been one for religion. But there, in that moment, as Tewkesbury kisses her, she thinks she feels Heaven or something like it for the first time.


End file.
